Nixon, Kissinger & Agnew on Vietnam War and Paris Peace Accords

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Because he's going back to Moscow.

I just wanted to be sure anyone wants to come in and blurb around.

Well, I think he's going to tell you that we shouldn't dissociate ourselves from Q at this fresh time.

Well, I thought it was just a little bit.

That's right, but I know him much more.

Well, he says it means Congress will cut off all funds because he doesn't know your

That disenables you, then.

I'm trying to accept him, though, whenever you want.

I can't talk.

Isn't it best not to talk?

You're just as little as possible.

No, no.

I must say, after I talked with him yesterday, I could understand your hesitation about sending him anyway.

You didn't see my client?

No.

Because he is an unguided metal.

He sits there.

He's serious, too.

Because he told me he was all for it.

All out.

That's what I thought.

All out for it.

Next thing I know, he's asking to see you.

to say, yes, there were some disagreements, but they are not the cause of the .

Well, I'm not going to let him make the end run.

That's exactly the point.

These gunners are going to make these goddamn cabin officers, and they come in with something that's primarily new.

If they do, it's fine, but they don't.

Well, they shouldn't.

You shouldn't be bothered.

But no matter what, I should be bothered with anything to get a point of view that I may be missing.

But the point is, they know goddamn well that everybody on this staff tells me what I'm going to say and what the other people are saying.

Well, he could assume that when I send over to see him, that you and I have discussed it at great length.

But maybe I'm wrong.

Maybe that isn't what he...

I've told them, I've told them, I've told them, I've told them, you had to make an analysis of the press.

What would you think we would do?

Oh, never let him be in this, but be present.

Never.

No, absolutely not.

Of the ones I know, I actually think Rockefeller would be the best, except for his age.

Conway is strong, too.

Yes.

He's here now.

Yeah.

All right.

Fine.

Right away.

That's it.

Mr. President, how are you?

Mr. President, I hope you're all right.

How are you?

We're close.

That's it.

You're off your test list.

I just feel like when I don't have any appointments on Saturday or Sunday when I'm in the office.

So I apologize.

I remember my dad always used to wear a sweater.

He loved wearing a sweater.

Instead of a coat, I thought it was comfortable.

He said, never liked it.

I wanted to see you because after Henry had talked with me yesterday and read me, I mentioned a couple of things to him, and then a couple of other things occurred to me after he left.

How do you go on with your fellowship?

Do you have a concern about the Congress?

Yes, sir.

Do you have a concern?

And I think that's real.

You know, Mathias and .

The Congress, in any event, is going to be a concern.

And that asshole Percy's talking about cutting off aid and anything they can do really to deter people, the whole thing.

Isn't that what it is?

Well, as I see it, the Mathias-Stevenson thing.

They're working together on a restoration of congressional prerogatives.

They say the executive has usurped

their power and gone beyond the constitutional intent.

So what were they trying to do?

I think what they may do is, if we hammer both sides, in other words, a pox on the North Vietnamese, a pox on Thieu and his attitude, they will use this as a vehicle to say, well, what the hell are we doing there?

McGovern was right.

What's his name?

Harriman's right, let's get out, and there's no real need to stay.

It was a mistake originally, and cut the funds off.

That's what I feel they may do.

The other point that I think is a real concern, as somewhat of a student of what happened in the past there, particularly in the Diem time, I think that if it gets out, the two is verbally laced.

I think there's a good chance that

Somebody over there might try to .

That's right.

Let me ask you this once again.

Congress will react to the fact that we may have to

I think a lot is going to depend on the way Henry handles this press conference and how much he's able to tell about this duplicity and the trickiness of

I think you should lean very heavily on the examples of inserting new issues, pulling them away, always leaving us on the brink of a settlement, reopening what has been settled.

If you're going to have any public sympathy at all, that has to be brought out.

On the other side, instead of the two being

treated rather harshly for transigence, I think the time would be more productive to your interest.

If someone went over there and stroked you, I mean really consolidated the relationship and said something on this order.

We understand that a country that's been torn by war for over almost a quarter of a century

we feel it's difficult for us to really appreciate the turmoil that those people are in as we sit here more or less insulated from their everyday involvement in the horrors of war.

And we understand that a leader, a duly elected leader of this country, is dealing with a constituency that's entirely different from what we face in American politics.

He's been accused of being a tool of the United States, a puppet,

It's perfectly obvious he isn't.

All of the criticisms directed against him now relate to the fact that he is not cooperative enough with us.

That is proof enough of itself that he acts for the Vietnamese people and not for the United States.

And then I think we ought to say something to this.

Even though he sees some of these things from a different viewpoint,

and is understandably concerned about any step that may assist in the North Vietnamese takeover of his country.

We know him as a man of reason who presented with a proper settlement.

We believe could be convinced of the merits of it and accept it.

But that's moot because we don't have the proper settlement to offer.

Isn't that basically what the situation is?

I'm just afraid that I wrote a long letter, just exactly along those lines.

And with that, probably money converted, and I should have promised every support.

I totally understood his problem, and so forth and so on.

We should, we had been allies in our friendship.

But in any event, there's no intent.

He's basically using us now.

What he's doing, basically, is sort of kicking us because he thinks I'm helping some of his people in the home.

And we have no intention of making him the culprit because if the error comes, it's as I would put it, and directly to Henry's case over in Harrison and directly to his fine.

This must come out in a way that Northern Vietnam, rather than South Vietnam, is to blame for the delay in the talks.

That's the main one.

And as far as the two is concerned, the reason that we don't want to do so right now is that a long part of the Bunker community is supposed to be nosy perhaps, better than anybody else.

He's in a strangely irrational frame of mind, and he is fearful of how he would react.

We can't put a big bullet there and then be slapped, because then he'd fall.

And if he falls, there's nobody else better.

We don't want to have him go through the DM syndrome.

That's what my main concern is.

So we've got to keep him.

as happy as we can.

And we're loving care up to this point.

Which is true that there are elements in the United States Congress who, in the event they get the impression that Jews and transgenders are responsible for, are not in our view of every small way Christmas and that sort of thing, then there are elements that we cut off

That's what I'm telling you.

You've got to avoid at all costs.

Because I see when people talk, I mean, some of the right-wingers, for example, are riding on the, I mean, it's, you can see why they're on the outside and will never get power, right?

Why don't we just settle in North Vietnam and let you handle this problem?

I mean, they say just get our prisoners and we get out.

The only question is, we made it.

We make an offer today to North Vietnam for prisoners of withdrawal of all arms and stopping the mine.

And stopping the mine, they would say no.

They would say no.

They would say, we don't give you your prisoners.

When you not only do that, but when you get out of North Vietnam, I make it all of them.

When you withdraw all aid from South Vietnam, all aid from Cambodia, all aid from Laos, and all aid from Thailand,

That is their condition for the prisoners.

That's their condition, you see.

And that is why this idea that we just go to law and separate from two is ridiculous.

If two has made the same suggestion, he says, well, we don't care.

You've fought long enough.

You make a deal with NARC and get out.

All right, we can make a deal with NARC.

would survive one hour, because there would be people who would need to kill him.

And then we'd have the same goddamn thing we had on the ground.

The biggest mistake that Jewel is making is that, with all his imperfections, his agreement would provide an legal basis for continued American involvement.

In the name of protecting D.C., any other agreement that's just bilateral gets us out totally.

No, we don't have the agreement.

I know, but if we have an agreement, the beauty of it is the beauty of the agreement that Joe has really, between us, we know he's the fellow that targeted it, not just between us.

He targeted it because he said, I will not sign this agreement because it does not provide for the withdrawal of all North Vietnamese from the South Vietnam before I sign.

Well, of course, that's a total repudiation of what he said he agreed to before.

A ceasefire means exactly that.

A ceasefire means everybody stays in place, and then they settle it politically.

So the agreement was perfect on that.

The duty of the agreement that he had was that not only it provided for an immediate return of POWs, it provided for an immediate ceasefire throughout the world of China, including Laos and Cambodia.

It provided for, in addition to that, for a political settlement, political settlement for South Vietnamese government, now retains 92% of the population.

It provided for Tuesday and then some gobbledygook kind of international supervisory body

or a body agreed by three parts would then have some reconciliation, meetings, and possibly an election to determine who governs.

And a queue would have the right to veto.

And so in other words, here we get a queue.

But more importantly, it provides the United States the right to replace all kinds of material.

Are you telling me, Mr. Burson, that the two, we could not have sold them?

No, we could not have sold them.

I sat and talked to Doug, his principal advisor here.

I went over this point by point myself.

I said, all this.

He said, no.

And then I went on to say, I said, do you realize, he said, but the North Vietnamese will still be there.

I said, well, what do you want us to do then?

And so he said, well, President, you want to make a separate deal with the North Vietnamese, get your prisoners, and then continue to support us economically and militarily, and we'll continue to fight the war until we drive the enemy out.

I said, that would be all, Duffy.

I said, but do you know how much chance, how long the Congress would wait before they throw us out on that?

See, we can't get that from the North Vietnamese.

See, the North Vietnamese will not give us the prisoners.

unless we give them a political settlement.

So we're giving them a political settlement in this, which means nothing.

It keeps the U.N. in power.

It provides for elections between the U.N.A.

that will never be in place.

Can I address that?

And an idea that may as well wither away, but in addition to something else.

We're dealing with emotions.

We're dealing with the Chinese.

This is in the background.

And we've saved the race this morning, frankly.

The Russians want to get this goddamn thing over for other reasons because they hate the Chinese.

The Chinese want to get it over because they have other vision of private us.

But neither of them can get caught not helping the North Vietnamese as long as it goes on.

The moment you get this, we can pull the string on that side.

And that means that South Vietnam really doesn't need.

It'll be like South Korea.

South Korea now has the second

And so that was the strongest, biggest army in Asia.

South Vietnam is the strongest army in Asia.

Here they said it was the strongest army in Asia.

We just put in a billion dollars more of stuff.

We've given them this kind of agreement.

And Chu will not accept it because he says no, because the agreement provides for it.

He says that it implicitly provides because it does not say that all armies in the east must leave.

A lack of sovereignty of his government over South Vietnam.

government stays in, we are going to issue a statement that we recognize only his government, as far as that's concerned.

We are going, of course, to continue to provide aid for only his government, you know, on the military side.

And here's the argument.

But that is, and that is the agreement, which, of course, has been blown.

That's the reason.

Why won't the North leave that agreement open for us?

but has a stopping block.

This is the reason why we were approving that agreement, frankly.

We got 12 approvals.

Henry thought that when he went on Monday and Tuesday of last week, we'd get two more.

And I had the idea.

I said, all right.

I had the vice president go out with the new agreement.

And so here it is now.

And then you tell him, the speaking person, you say, look, I know the Congress, Mr. Greiser, Mr. President.

You may not like this provision or that provision.

You may disagree with this or that.

But if you don't take this,

This agreement, which the President believes is the best we can get, which the Congress over how many will believe, which the country believes, if you don't take this, the Congress is going to cut off any, much as we would want to help.

The trouble is now, we could have lived perfectly well with the October agreement.

But he won't take it today.

He'll go back to October 8th, right today.

Yeah, but if we go back to October 8th now,

It would be such a shattering defeat for him and all the thoughts he made that I don't think he could survive that.

See, he said we've already crossed the bridge and he wouldn't take October 8th.

So we need some cosmetics.

So we're trying to get some cosmetics.

And we've got some already.

We can improve on October 8th.

I thought we had the National Council of Reconciliation and Concord clarified in language.

That was a hell of a big concern.

It is.

But the trouble with the past, if you forgive me, is that we bring him every evening and

It matters what we're doing.

You won't believe this.

Every time we gave him something, he put it out on Radio Saigon as something that really licked Hanoi.

Then Hanoi withdrew everything.

So we went, this we haven't said to anyone.

Let me say this.

We didn't get an approved agreement over October 8th.

The trouble with the altar, and I studied it greatly.

I reread Churchill's account, which, of course, is the most critical of all.

Time and time again.

And I read Altruist's account.

And Bolden's.

Bolden's perhaps the most objective.

The trouble with the altar was not the agreement.

It was the fact that the goddamn communists, the Russians, busted it.

They didn't forgive them for the polls and free elections.

They didn't provide for what they were supposed to with Czechoslovakia.

Now, any agreement we make with these sons of bitches will be worth only the will of the people who keep it and what we can have in the way of tripwires to smack them again.

Now, this agreement that we've developed, I believe, has got so many landmines in it where if they start infiltration, if they

if they don't diss out the Supervisory Board.

You know what I mean?

Where we can say, they have broken the agreement.

We're going to start bombing them again.

Now that is what's going to make them come along.

Plus, of course, the stroke we have with the Russians, the strokes we have with the Chinese, and the stroke we'll have with North Vietnam, because at that point, presumably, we will be giving them some economic assistance that they desperately need.

What you have here is a situation, a curious one,

However, and this is the real point where they've sent up a bit of certain Percy and Matthias, your senators, whom I trust will have, as I was saying, I understand that nobody's going to believe in them, but I guess it's going to primary.

We'll get somebody out.

Well, get somebody.

No, no, no.

I won't be involved in it.

We don't make him another good deal.

But here's the reason that that sort of thing hurts.

Put yourself in the position of an ally.

They didn't say, here's Henry and Paris.

It's two weeks before Christmas.

It's ten days before Christmas.

It's two weeks before the Congress comes in.

So he says this.

So they can say, what the hell?

We'll give them the law.

We'll wait.

We're not bombing very much.

Not as much as we were.

I may be bombing a lot more next week for this very reason.

So you see...

They say, it doesn't make any difference.

Why do we make a commitment now?

Because the Congress will be, it will be so mad because there is no agreement that the Congress will proceed to cut off all aid.

You see, there is a danger.

There is a critical danger.

And so they figure they've already had it with the Congress.

They aren't going to give it to us.

That's the thing.

That's the reason we've got to act.

And if, for example, I was delighted to see that Barry made them on the other side, but that Barry also took a slap in the face because I say, in effect, well, look, they don't want to go on because we've got what he's trying to do really is to build a backfire, as I see it, against the damn Doves.

See, the Doves want to lose the war.

They really do.

Do you agree?

Yes, sir.

They don't give a damn.

They have a vested interest in it.

So what we need now at this time, we have got to convince the country, and it's got to be told us how, we've got to convince the country, and Henry will get it across his mind, first, that it was the Russians, the communists, were the business.

He's got to put in a line with the effect.

He's got to take into account the fact, yes, it is true that the South Vietnamese had some disagreements with the text, which we have tried to improve.

So I think it's in Hugh's interest that he is not made the guy who stopped the agreement.

What I think it is, is to our interest, is to say, roughly what Hugh said, minus that we are sure they didn't accept it.

But we should say, yes, there were some disagreements with the South Vietnamese, but that is a moot question.

Because we never reached that issue.

We have never reached that issue.

And we don't know whether they accepted it.

But the other point is that we, above everything else, have got to get the goddamned Congress to stand firm.

That's not going to be easy, Mr. President.

Well, it won't be easy in that kind of context, but it will be if we get the POW thing up front and center.

And let that be the only issue.

And that might happen too.

Do you think... Hey, folks, I have a question for you.

Suppose we all...

You can say, all right, there is no political center.

In return for all of our POWs and accounting for our MIAs, we will stop the bombing, stop the mining, and withdraw all of our Americans within 60 days.

Then the question will come up, how about economic and military assistance?

All right, on that point, I'll give you the majority of the statements on the first one.

as long as we will continue economic and military solidarity, as long as the Congress is able to.

But the point is, as far as the point of the Congress is concerned, the Congress would have had to support the provocation of the prisoners from withdrawal.

I think they would, but I think they'd also force us completely out of there very quickly after that.

Well, there's a problem we've got.

In other words, I think it would be a...

But should we continue to play this game?

Why would we do that?

The North Vietnamese would be delighted to let us play another Paris session.

Yeah, we can go through another Paris session.

That's true.

I mean, we can keep this peace movement going for another three or four weeks.

It seems to me, based on what you told me, Henry, that the only way we're going to get...

negotiating in good faith as if the North Vietnamese think we're fully ready to resume kicking the hell out of them.

That's right.

The question is, how do you keep things quiet here while you're doing it?

Yeah, but why don't you have to kick them some before they know that?

There's no doubt about that.

That's why it seems to me that a consultation with two, now, if Faye goes, unless he

reveals what we say.

I think what we really ought to say is that we really can sell you to it.

There's one thing that we understand.

I think we ought to say it publicly, that we're there because the reasons we went in there to help the Jew government are just as valid today as the day we went in there.

The problem is that when there is one problem, we start kicking them again.

Here's a few ones.

He was afraid to go along.

And I think what happens is that Jew doesn't know.

And he thinks, he just thinks that because we've done it all before, we'll be able to carry it again.

He doesn't realize that there comes a time when the American people are tired of the goddamn war and they want over.

And that's what it is.

But if the North would let us get to the point where it wasn't moved,

Then I could see how you could not bring in... Where was my call?

In other words, if they said, yes, the situation is open to settlement with some cosmetic changes that will allow us to say to you now, look, we've gone back and we've... That's exactly what we had last week.

Frankly, we have three times presented to you.

You said no.

Three times.

Believe me, they were good cosmetics.

I thought what I was supposed to do was to go say, now, damn it, here they are.

This is the last time we're going to present to you.

What's that?

Wasn't that what I was supposed to do?

Yeah.

Here they are.

This is the last time with a high visibility.

You were.

You see, we didn't want to launch you.

If we had them on the dotted line, we should probably have gone ahead with that.

We planned to.

That's where we were headed.

You would have gone next.

We expected to have them on the dotted line.

And then I'll be damned if you didn't put out that.

These are small things, it seems.

But I'll say, Monday night.

Well, the issue is the recognition

But now we're looking at a situation where we don't have them on the dotted line, so we can't look at it in the same frame.

You know what I thought the situation is?

Let me try this.

It doesn't make, I told this a little while ago, it doesn't make any difference whether we recognize it in the military or not.

It doesn't make any difference whether this is called a national government of Concord or a national committee of Concord or not.

It depends upon what...

And I said, if they come across that demilitarized zone, we're going to bomb the hell out of them.

I said, Dad, I gave you a promise to cut straight with the trailer.

And in the event that they try to treat this situation as a government, rather than simply have committed to set up an election, two is really toy.

So tell me, what is wrong with that?

Why is it, Mr. President, to the North's benefit to give us the agreement?

Is it what 2 is saying about it?

We're clearly placed in a position where we have to act, and we know that.

Why won't they do that?

For their own benefit.

Congress is coming in on the 3rd.

They think we're going to get it from them.

They think they might have a long life's grasp, a victory from the Chauvinists.

They're hurt.

Why are they talking?

Because the bombing and the mining has brought them to their knees.

This thing is over.

That really is military.

They would need to be talking to their urban bandit.

But right now, you see, they see the deadline of the Congress coming back.

And these assholes like Stevenson and Dias are saying the Congress will cut off aid.

What would you do if you were sitting in the North?

Would you agree to anything?

I don't understand.

I thought I could give it to Congress.

Well, you see, therefore, this was a 50-50 deal.

They had made major concessions, really big concessions.

But you would have had to make some concessions, too.

They must have made the decision with a very narrow margin in October.

One reason why we were so much in favor of pushing in October was because they were against the deadline on November 7 that they couldn't change and that we couldn't change.

Now they feel that they little have the long week after week.

They can always settle if things get too tough.

very cleverly maneuvered it into a position where by sending one message, they can settle it.

But they never send a goddamn message.

So if we crack, they get the whole ball of wax.

If we don't crack, they still have the option of settling.

And there's still a chance for a settlement.

There's still a chance of settlement.

The Russians are pressuring the Chinese main.

The main point is, what is pressuring them most?

And we're going to be much more critical next week.

We've got to.

And when the Congress comes back, we have to have it out.

We'll have it out.

They ought to talk it as much.

You know, we've dealt with... And we may have to use you.

But I told Henry and I said I'm not going to send but walks by the president out there and have him revoked by this son of a bitch.

I mean, either one.

I mean, when I say he was a son of a bitch, I say it more in sorrow than in anger, because the enemy's cutting his own throat.

He doesn't realize it.

If you put a plebiscite up in this country, should we support it?

We'd fold this.

12%.

On the other hand, if you put a plebiscite up in the country, do you favor the imposition of a communist government on South Vietnam by coalition government?

It's 52 to 30 against it.

You see, Hugh has now confused himself with the real issue.

And he's got to watch out.

The American people don't know that he is synonymous with the other Communist government.

There isn't anybody else.

Well, he didn't understand.

I've tried to tell him to visit Pastor.

Right.

I've told God.

You heard two hours of a lecture session somebody's ever had in his office.

If Hugh, if the American people felt that what came out of that is something they can be proud of,

They defend it.

They don't give a good goddamn, but it's called accountable.

And all this, but not all these greats that decide to be in the least of us will make any difference.

But what I'm looking at, or trying to look at, and I agree 100% with you about this, I think you've definitely been right on key.

What it appears to be, what happens in the event

to get the idea that we are publicly wavering on children.

To me, that is... Well, no, they won't get anywhere wavering on children.

No, no, don't worry about that.

That's terrible, terrible.

That would cause a cutoff.

We're going to look at a possible... No, I meant the memorandum that I indicated when I put this thing in.

Don't worry about that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, but I want to go over this one piece thing with you.

I'll get out of here.

We're not going to throw all on you.

That's the easiest thing to do.

And we can't cut off on him.

A separate piece is impossible.

We all know that he's the one that's talking about a separate piece.

But the part that we have to do is that we have to

lay a foundation for what we have to do next week.

And that is we've got to give them a kick in the ass.

And everybody's got to stand firm for a week over Christmas.

Despite all of our talk about peace.

We've still got that fun cutoff looking at us, I think, regardless of what we do.

Yeah, I agree.

You mean the fun cutoff that the Congress can still act upon?

Yeah.

Takes a little time.

You're going to have Henry brief, and he's going to select you for that.

Today?

Or any time before they convene?

No.

No, not now.

What we're going to do today is going to brief the press on the status of the negotiations.

We don't want to escalate this to that point.

Congress is spread all over hell anyway.

We couldn't get them anything.

No, I didn't mean now.

I mean before they organize.

Well, the only purpose of her doing that would be to indicate what we have to do over the next three weeks and so forth.

This is going to be, we have to be watching week by week.

Within a week, we'll know whether the North Vietnamese, the Miitra, they will probably know that they're going to get a stone's throw.

We're going to know then whether or not we have to submit to the Congress our own cutoff.

We have to submit a cutoff.

And then everybody's got to line up and fight for it.

And the cutoff, however, has got to, one thing we cannot cut off is economic military aid in the South.

That's another reason why we're not going to miss on two things.

All right, sir.

You got it?

I have it.

You agree?

I agree entirely.

I'm just concerned.

Sure.

From what Henry told me about the Q, the way it was going to appear was that our confidence in Q has been diminished.

Even though it has, I don't think so.

I understand.

We don't even make it.

by being a little rough on the Russians.

On the North of the United States.

Right, on the country.

On the country.

Okay.

I, therefore, did a, wrote another little sheet of paper out here, which you can take and get it in your box if you want to use it.

Definitely.

I'm not sure it's right, but here's, I just read it so you get the feel, because I haven't had a chance to do it.

Here are some further reflections as to your briefing today.

Having in mind the need to strengthen the portions which might be interpreted as meaning that we are willing to go along with the present pace of negotiations without taking some action to stop the ominous energy buildup, an action which will bring

We have, that's what you really have to get in.

You've got to prepare.

It mustn't happen that something come out of yourself.

They say, isn't you such a .

Oh, you see, I was good.

There was a story this morning.

We bombed the hell out of them, nested them.

That's good.

Now, since October 8th, and since the order, thinking about what you were saying, since I had my brief here where I talked about the piece of man, we have been patient.

trying to work out technical details so that there would be no misunderstandings.

The clarifications and changes that we have insisted upon have had only one purpose.

After a very long war, we don't want to end it with a settlement which will bring only a short peace.

I get in that line in that way.

That's why we have been working on that.

But now the remaining differences can be settled within a matter of a few hours by an exchange of messages between the two sides without even a further meeting.

provided there was a serious intent from both sides to negotiate a real and lasting peace, rather than try to gain some advantage which will enable one side or the other to agree to the war.

We have been talking with the enemy for over four years.

I put that in.

During that four years, 5,000 Marines and thousands of North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese have lost their lives.

The time has come now to bring the talking and the war to an end.

The time has come, and if you'd like to, you would have to say that for the past 30 days, the way the other side has gone up the hill and down the hill on various proposals would indicate a filibuster rather than a serious attempt to reach a settlement in the fighting.

Hard language.

You don't want to use it in the chapter.

We want a rapid settlement for three basic reasons.

Now, this must go ahead.

From a humanitarian and personal standpoint, our POWs, some of them have been incarcerated for over six years.

We want their release as soon as possible.

Second, we want to stop the fighting because while our U.S. casualties, we want to cease fire, because while our U.S. casualties are minimal, with several weeks in which there have been no human actions, South Vietnamese and North Vietnamese are dying in battle with a thousand living people.

And third, we want a settlement now.

because we will not tolerate allowing peace talks to be used as a cover for a military build-up which could mean a step-up of a war in the future.

Both the North Vietnamese and the South Vietnamese must share some responsibility for the delay of reaching the South.

Each side wants to gain advantages in the peace table it has not been able to gain in the battlefield.

It is time to have the ceasefire.

of the people of South Vietnam decide at the ballot by their votes what kind of government they want.

It is time that we move this conflict from the battlefield to the ballot box constantly.

We are going to step up our pressure on both sides for a faster settlement and taking this courage, we are doing it in the interest of both sides.

Neither side can gain from continuing the war, prolonging the war.

Neither side can gain

We are ready to resume the talks to reach a rapid settlement.

In the meantime, the President will continue to order whatever actions he considers necessary by AOC to prevent what now appears to be an ominous build-up in the North for the purpose of launching a new offensive against Assad.

Just some thoughts.

Except for the last sentence, I think I could use most of it.

I hope you refuse to take the land you put in there, but I think we might as well just drop them without notifying them.

I think everybody's going to get the point.

But whether we want to say that each side bears some responsibility for the sale, I don't know.

Well, I think I would tilt it more against Hanoi.

I would tilt it more against Hanoi.

But I'll just give a very manner of fact briefing, no outrage.

I'll just say this is what that is.

Either side can gain from continuing the war.

Either side can gain from prolonging PP's talks.

That's got to be there.

This is time to settle.

But I don't know.

You know, you talk to Exeter, though.

He's a nice guy, but white people have to come in.

He told it to me yesterday already.

He didn't tell you much.

And I told it immediately to all of them.

And I would have told you first thing in the morning.

But we all know, and he says, I'm afraid they're going to come out.

That's the command.

He says, I'm afraid.

It's like everybody else.

I'm afraid the Congress is going to come out and cut off the aid.

They may.

We may be faced with that.

So what do we do then, Henry?

You did answer, but I don't...

I answered that, but what would you...

Blame the Democrats.

Sure.

For getting us out of the war.

Well, we could...

There is a challenge, Mr. President.

It is not impossible that these filthy bastards are just playing under long debris.

They told me that they told the Russians...

that they think you've got to settle before inauguration, and they're going to run it up closer to inauguration.

So it's possible that they'll give us a settlement before inauguration, even without our doing anything.

But it's a gamble, which if we lose, we'll really be paralyzed.

The decision we're making is not that you have a briefing today, which you must have.

The decision we're making is that your briefing is setting the stage for the action that we're going to take on Monday.

But you could have the briefing without the action.

But let's look at the action.

You can't really have any doubts about it in terms of the fact that

What does the action do to this on the negative side?

Leave a healthy reaction in this country.

Well, on the negative side, they may just say, OK, we're going to go another year now and see what happens.

Right.

In the past... That's on the positive side.

On the positive side, they could say,

All right, now we've just got it simple.

And the track record is a little bit more in that direction.

Well, then they were ready to have a private talk.

But when you did the mining and farming, they came back to the conference.

They were a whole lot faster.

On May 2nd, they absolutely sold both of them.

After the mining and bombing, it left a disgrace.

But they may take it a few months.

I cannot tell you that they may not go until March.

I don't think they can take it if we keep it up.

If they were supposed to be on their knees, they wouldn't have.

The whole mine says the main thing is to do the mining.

We've got to do the mining anyway.

No question.

We do the bombing so that we can continue to have something being done that we can give or we'll take away.

We've got to have some farm in the present time.

Just hitting rice paddies to a 20th barrel ain't enough.

It isn't enough.

You know it's not enough.

Now, because they're going to put 127 B-52s up and loaded over North Vietnam, and that's fantastic.

And that's going to

You know, break them or break us.

That's not just bombing.

I mean, that's really obliterating them.

Obliterating what she is.

Yeah, but that's going to blow out every window that I know of.

That's a start.

I'm healing the foundation for that.

I beg your pardon?

I'm healing the foundation for that.

Oh, I'll just explain in a very matter-of-fact way what that's done.

I'm going to sit here a second.

I presume far may I wouldn't go into how many planes.

That depends, Angela.

It's winter, so we're using B-52s rather than fighter planes.

OK, because of bad weather, there was a bit of a simply reaction here.

Remember, that's what I'd say.

Remember, they're changing the building.

That's the time to say that.

There is the danger, like in Cambodia, that everyone is now so set for peace

But they'll just say, let's get it over with any way we can.

commentators, the rest, all speak great wisdom about everything.

Oh, God, and thank you.

Well, forgive me.

I don't mean to hurt you.

I'll come and do it.

Just use whatever you feel is, you feel comfortable with.

I mean, just go in there and comment.

You know we're doing the right thing.

And, uh, that's, uh,

It's going to be tough, actually.

I think the press haven't been consistent enough.

There's going to be a lot of disappointment, but I think I can get also a lot of sympathy for us, that we've really tried everything.

Yeah, that sounds good.

And that we're doing what is right, and that we still believe we're going to get it.

I'm going to say it's one decision away and none away.

Thank you.

Just one decision.

One decision away.

We can have another one.

Are you with me?

Oh, there's some time afterwards.

You've got to let me sit.

No, no, no.

Yeah, when you get through, come in.

We'll have a chat.

Good luck to you.

Thank you.

Nixon, Kissinger & Agnew on Vietnam War and Paris Peace Accords

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Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on December 16, 1972

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